{"id":2649,"date":"2019-12-02T10:13:07","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T18:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/?p=2649"},"modified":"2019-12-02T10:13:07","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T18:13:07","slug":"micro-grids-lessons-learned-from-californias-pioneering-microgrids-greentech-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/2019\/12\/02\/micro-grids-lessons-learned-from-californias-pioneering-microgrids-greentech-media\/","title":{"rendered":"MICRO GRIDS: Lessons Learned From California’s Pioneering Microgrids | Greentech Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/www.greentechmedia.com\/articles\/read\/lessons-learned-from-californias-pioneering-microgrids<\/a><\/p>\n

Open the above link to read some of the interesting comments . . .<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
May 13, 2019<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Lessons Learned From California\u2019s Pioneering Microgrids<\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

California is several years into a\u00a0push to help commercialize microgrids<\/b><\/span>\u00a0in the state. Now, officials are taking stock of the performance of the first generation of microgrids supported under the effort.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

These demonstration\u00a0microgrids are delivering a reported utility bill savings of 20 percent to 60 percent, primarily in avoided demand charges, and some have successfully\u00a0islanded\u00a0<\/u>during power outages.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

State regulators believe microgrids, or localized grids that can operate apart from or in concert with the traditional power grid, offer solutions to some of the\u00a0challenges facing grid operators, including integrating distributed energy resources.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The California\u00a0Energy Commission (CEC), which has led the early work by state agencies to advance microgrids, has\u00a0disbursed a total of $84.5 million<\/a>\u00a0to build 20 new microgrids scattered across the territories of the state\u2019s three investor-owned utilities. Grant funding for the projects has come from the\u00a0Electric Program Investment Charge<\/a>\u00a0(EPIC), a ratepayer-funded energy innovation research program.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The CEC recently convened a\u00a0workshop<\/a>\u00a0on lessons learned from the seven microgrids funded under the EPIC program in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

The projects include: a microgrid at the\u00a0Blue Lake Rancheria<\/a>, a tribal community in Humboldt County; a microgrid owned and operated by San Diego Gas and Electric Company (SDG&E) in\u00a0Borrego Springs<\/a>, which includes a 26-megawatt, ground-mounted solar PV array; microgrids installed at\u00a0three City of Fremont fire stations<\/a>; a microgrid installed at Kaiser Permanente\u2019s Richmond Medical Center; a\u00a0direct-current microgrid<\/a>\u00a0installed at a Honda distribution center; a microgrid on the Las Positas College campus; and a\u00a0microgrid installed at the City of Santa Rosa\u2019s Laguna Wastewater Treatment Plant.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The seven projects were awarded a total of $26.5 million, with project grants ranging from $3 million to $5 million each.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

“Clear value”<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u201cAcross the board, we demonstrated that microgrids have a clear value, and in certain cases, can be very beneficial,<\/b><\/span>\u201d Mike Gravely,\u00a0team lead in the California Energy Commission\u2019s energy R&D division, told Greentech Media in an interview.<\/span><\/p>\n

David Erne, a supervisor in\u00a0the CEC\u2019s energy R&D division, said the projects funded by the commission in 2015 focused on two use cases: microgrids ensuring low-carbon power delivery at critical facilities and\u00a0<\/span>supporting a high penetration of renewables.<\/u><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor the critical facilities,\u201d he said, \u201cit was clear that the resilience aspect of those microgrids really resonated with the end customers, and they saw the value.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Blue Lake Rancheria microgrid has already been tested by unplanned grid outages. Erne recalled that when a nearby fire caused the surrounding grid to go down, \u201cThey were able to island successfully and seamlessly during that outage.\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still a costly endeavor to implement one of these,\u201d he added. \u201cBut we\u2019re already seeing entities that are…[acknowledging] the value and understanding the business case for building them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Erne said several of the operators of the EPIC-funded microgrids, including Gridscape Solutions, the owner and developer of the Fremont fire station microgrids, are building and refining their business models to take on more clients.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mike Gravely observed that one of the signs of the success of the 2015 class of microgrids was the fact that by the time the CEC accepted proposals for a\u00a0second round of EPIC-funded microgrids<\/a>\u00a0in 2017, and awarded grants beginning the next year, \u201cthe number of proposals, and the quality of proposals, came way up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first round, only seven proposals passed the CEC\u2019s funding screening process and all seven were awarded grants. Just a few years later, round two generated 60 proposals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe interest is high. The technical expertise has grown. Those are positive signs in the area of microgrids being perceived as a viable solution,\u201d<\/b><\/span>\u00a0said Gravely.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gravely\u00a0emphasized the importance of the ratepayers\u2019 seed money.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWithout the Energy Commission\u2019s insertion of funds, most if not all of these microgrids would never have happened,\u201d<\/b><\/span>\u00a0he said. \u201cThey used those funds to pay the upfront capital costs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Going forward, six of the seven EPIC-funded 2015 microgrids will continue operating. According to Gravely, the DC microgrid installed at the Honda warehouse facility was shut down in March of this year \u2014 not because of any performance failure but owing to a decision by Bosch, the project developer, to take its business in another direction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Project interconnection and standardization challenges<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Even though project developers have made substantial progress in microgrid design and construction since 2015, barriers remain. In a\u00a0presentation<\/a>\u00a0at the CEC workshop, Gravely\u00a0summarized many of the challenges, which were based on feedback from interviews Navigant Consulting conducted with the microgrid customers and developers.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the lessons learned included: permitting and interconnection still take far too long; component costs continue to decline but will need to fall further for many customers to achieve their required returns, absent grant funding; and microgrids often require long-term third-party service agreements to support O&M.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll of them took longer than they thought they were going to need to take for interconnection with the utility,\u201d Gravely said.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cInterconnection is still one of the most time-consuming challenges.\u201d<\/u><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Erne added that the microgrid developers all learned by doing. Operators, he said, got better at designing microgrid controllers and tailoring the controllers to the project.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, he added, \u201cthe challenge that we still have is the design for each microgrid. It\u2019s not quite a plug-and-play process, which is what you really need for a robust market.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Erne predicted that in the coming years, more developers will create templates suitable for project size and the end customer.<\/span><\/p>\n

The path to commercialization<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Around the same time the CEC was preparing the solicitation for the second batch of EPIC-funded microgrids, the commission was also\u00a0drafting a microgrid policy road map<\/a>.\u00a0The draft road map was prepared without state policy guidance.<\/u><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

But that changed with passage of legislation in 2018 (SB 1339<\/a>), which directed the California Public Utilities Commission to develop a standardized interconnection process, as well as appropriate rates and tariffs, for microgrids by December 1, 2020.<\/u><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

According to Mike Gravely, the CPUC has requested additional staff to begin implementing SB 1339, with the first public workshops expected by the end of this year. He added that the CEC\u2019s draft microgrid roadmap, which was put on hold after passage of SB 1339, will likely be updated and released as part of the CPUC\u2019s new public microgrids proceeding.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/www.greentechmedia.com\/articles\/read\/lessons-learned-from-californias-pioneering-microgrids Open the above link to read some of the interesting comments . . . \u00a0 May 13, 2019 Lessons Learned From California\u2019s Pioneering Microgrids California is several years into a\u00a0push to help commercialize microgrids\u00a0in the state. Now, officials are taking stock of the performance of the first generation of microgrids supported under the effort. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-micro-grids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2650,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions\/2650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}